


The Truth that Once was Spoken

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Series: Web Series AU [11]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Valjean POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 06:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17935034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: Valjean is on the run again.This is the accompanying piece to Episode 85 of theMysteries of 24601 Web Series AU. This will make some sense if read by itself, but it will make much more sense if you read the rest first.I recommend reading this before episode 85.Warnings:major character death, emotional departures, illness





	The Truth that Once was Spoken

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait) for following be through every up and down of this series and still managing to be petty enough up count words while crying through this section.
> 
> Takes place two months after episode 84.

“Monsieur, please,” the priest pleads. “You must see a doctor.”

Valjean shakes his head, shivering even under the blanket. A close call at the last cathedral had forced him into the woods for a week, and his kit had not been adequately prepared for the cold weather that had come with it. Another coughing fit racks his body.

The priest looks like he wants to contest the point when the sound of doors being thrown open rings through the sanctuary. The priest quickly stands, nodding to Valjean where he is propped up in the confessional booth before closing the curtain.

“Greetings and welcome,” the good father can be heard saying. “Is th—”

“Monsieur l'Abbé, I am Detective Javert. You are currently harboring Jean Valjean, a dangerous fugitive who, in more recent years, has taken the alias Ultime Fauchelevent, among others.”

The priest sputters. “Good Detective, you are welcome here, but I’m afraid I don—”

“I know he is here, and I know you have been caring for him. If you do not give him up now, you will be charged with aiding and abetting a known fugitive and obstruction of justice.”

The priest is quiet, and Valjean knows he must be balancing his options. The man is young, not yet thirty, with so much hope for the world. To besmirch the man’s life in this way, when he himself has already lived such a long life, would be a waste. In any case, his sacrifice would be for naught: Valjean was only barely able to tamp down his cough earlier, and he feels it now attempting to claw its way out of his chest once more.

Valjean sweeps the curtain aside before the priest can answer, taking the decision out of his hands. He looks horrified, bless him, as Valjean struggles to pull himself upright.

“Monsieur LeBlanc,” the priest stutters, beginning to rush forward.

“Père Matthieu, it is quite all right,” Valjean croaks in response.

He half-expects Javert to stop the young priest from rushing to his aid, but when he finally looks up he sees the detective standing in the middle of the aisle, stance wide and looking imperious.

“Valjean,” the detective declares as the priest pulls Valjean’s arm over himself to assist his walking. Has it really been only two months since he had been with Cosette? Two months since Madame Houcheloup had compared him to a bull, since Cosette’s friend called him...what was it, a unit? Cosette had tried to explain, and he had pretended to understand. Surely a “unit” doesn’t require aid in crossing a room.

Valjean tries to respond to Javert’s challenge, but instead he feels his weight fall into the Father as another fit of coughs overtakes him.

“Please, Detective,” the priest pleads. “This man needs a doctor, not a jail.”

“This man,” Javert responds, voice dripping accusation, “has a history of fleeing custody. I’ll not allow it to happen again.”

Valjean feels the priest take a breath to begin his pleas afresh and squeezes the man’s shoulder, nodding when he sees the man’s head turn toward him. The priest sighs, wordlessly following Javert as he leads them out to a car. The cold air seizes Valjean’s lungs, coughs doubling him over with their force. If Javert notices, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

Valjean is guided into the backseat by the Father’s firm, careful hold. Once he’s seated, he feels something icy brush his wrists with a click.

“Detective, I hardly think those are necessary in his sta—”

“Once a thief, forever a thief,” Javert promises, though Valjean does not look up to see him. The air is frigid: already, even with the blanket, he feels the cold taking hold of him and making him spasm. “He’ll steal his freedom once again if given the chance.”

“Monsieur LeB—Monsieur Valjean,” the poor priest stammers. “This will not stand. I shall do everything in my power—”

“Père,” Valjean states as firmly as he can manage before softening. “You have cared for me while I have been sick and clothed me when I had little of my own. You have fed me when I am hungry. There is no need for you to visit me in jail to stand among the sheep.”

“Monsieur,” the priest implores. “I assure you, I do not act thusly out of some misplaced sense of obligation—”

“I know,” assures Valjean. “And I thank you for that. But now, I am old and tired. I have been running all these long years. Please, Père, let me go peacefully.”

The priest looks between Valjean and Javert several times, and for a moment Valjean worries that he will need to move over in the backseat for the Father. Valjean releases a breath as the man backs down, looking fiery in his reluctance. 

The door slams shut next to Valjean, but he cannot find the strength to flinch when it comes to its close mere centimeters from his face. He hears another door open and shut, and the car is soon roaring to life and filling with warmth. Valjean leans against the door and stares impassively ahead, praying for a short ride. He catches Javert looking back at him in the rearview mirror several times, but the man never attempts to engage him in discussion, and Valjean is grateful for it.

After what might have been several minutes or several hours, he hears the car shut off. He barely has time to lean back before the door pulls open, strangling Valjean with chills and coughs. He feels himself being yanked forward out of the car by his restraints, bringing him to his knees on the frozen ground. He knows his legs and wrists likely smart with welts, but he can’t feel it through the ache of cold against his feverish skin.

Javert is not dissuaded, and Valjean is vaguely aware that he is being pulled to his feet and escorted into a building. He hears someone call to grab a wheelchair and soon feels himself gliding easily into a bright room.

 

\---

 

He’s dead. He must be dead: there’s no way that Cosette would know to find him here, and surely it’s an avenging angel that stands behind her with its heavenly host eviscerating the bewildered officer that sits at the desk.

Though he’d rather hoped Cosette would have no reason to cry in heaven. And that he’d no longer find himself behind bars. Perhaps he had only fallen asleep after all.

Through the fog of sleep and the haze of fever he recognizes the man he’d mistaken for an angel as one of Cosette’s friends, the one with political ambitions. And the large one, he’s the one who’s been studying law for years, isn’t he? Even the noodle is here. Now that he’s trying to make sense of the sounds around him he identifies that the boy seems to be speaking with firmness and confidence equal to his lawyer and politician friends.

There are others, many of whom crowd his bars. Cosette’s distress has already shifted to self-righteous anger. She has turned from him and seems to be swearing a blue streak at the unfortunate desk person. The curly-haired Spaniard who had asked to call him ‘father’ has a video camera out, face red and shaking with fury; there are tears tracking down his cheeks, and Valjean wishes he could find the words to calm the usually jovial boy, but all speech seems to escape him at the moment. Cosette’s small nurse friend kneels at the bars closest to him, calling his name and asking questions that he can’t make out.

“Cosette?” he manages at last. The room goes silent, and Cosette appears at the bars next to the nurse. 

He can see that her face is lined with tears, but her expression is set with determination. “Papa, we’re getting you out of here. Just hold on a little longer.”

At that, a door slams open. Valjean can’t see who it is, but he recognizes the voice that rings through the room immediately.

“What is happening in here?” Javert demands.

The voices that answer speak rapidly, using terminology that Valjean cannot follow. He gathers that legal precedence and codes are being thrown around with intimidating conviction.

“This man has done no wrong! He needs a doctor’s care!” an impassioned voice rises from the bustle at the desk, the only thing he can make out clearly.

Javert halts it with a sentence: “This man is a criminal who has broken parole and been on the run for over twenty years. The man you know as Fauchelevent is a fraud and a means to an end.”

He can almost sense the shimmer in the air before an incensed Cosette is about to speak her mind. “Whatever name he might have, he is my papa, he is a good man, and I refuse to believe that anything he might have done before taking me in is worthy of this treatment.”

Her nurse friend stands, moving toward the desk. “This man is showing signs of pneumonia in its late stages. If he stays here, he will die—that’s not a guess, it’s a promise.”

Cosette’s serious friend with the glasses moves toward the desk, and his bass voice reverberates in the room as he appeals to the man at the computer. “This man’s only crime is that he broke parole, twenty-three years ago. Detective Javert here was dismissed from the assignment back in 2001 for his obsessive behavior regarding it shortly before being transferred to Montreuil-sur-Mer. 

“We have a registered nurse promising that an ex-convict will die if he remains here...for a crime that the statute of limitations should have run out on long ago.” There’s a poignant pause. “His life is in your hands, Officer.”

The officer turns to his computer, quickly tapping a few keys. The air in the room is tense. Valjean can make out the officer looking back and forth between him and the computer several times before pressing a button and looking to the bespectacled boy.

“I can’t seem to find any record of your friend here in our systems, Sir. Apologies for the trouble. Detective Javert, please release this man at once.”

There’s a dead moment as the officer at the desk stares at the space behind Cosette’s friends before he hears footsteps. Javert’s stiff, stoic face appears at the bars, gaze trained steadily ahead at something Valjean cannot see as the lock clicks open.

It takes a moment for Valjean to focus on Cosette and her nurse friend when they rush in, her friend in leather keeping everyone else at bay. Cosette must be the one pushing his wheelchair—why? He needs to see her, what if he doesn’t have another chance to talk with her? The nurse is spouting a stream of information that, frankly, he couldn’t care less about right now even if he could understand it.

There’s vague discussion about transportation that seems to figure itself out over his head. He can only focus on one thing right now: finding Cosette. He attempts to turn in the chair, and his vision blurs again. The next thing he can make out is a close-up of the threadwork in Cosette’s blue knit sweater and her curly hair pressing against his face, followed shortly by darkness. 

The voice he hears is much louder than before: “I’m here now, Papa. Hang in there.”

 

\---

 

This time when he wakes he knows he’s not dead: everything hurts so badly, and he’s pretty sure even hell doesn’t involve this many needles and whatever is threaded through his nose.

“Cosette?” he forces out, and even that pains him.

“Papa,” he hears his daughter’s voice cry. He turns his head toward the sound and sees his beautiful, beautiful daughter clasping his hand. Beside her is her freckled friend asleep in an armchair. She must see him looking because she releases a watery laugh. “The others were nearly impossible to get out of here, I think staff was getting ready to get a forklift in here. It would seem that our family has grown considerably since our arrival in Paris.”

He huffs in amusement, and the breathy chuckle stabs in his chest. He tries not to let the pain show, but he must not do a very good job because Cosette’s laugh quickly turns to a sob.

“Couldn’t manage to get rid of the noodle?” he nods, a dry attempt at humor.

She sniffles. “I think he’s staying put. You’ve done more for him than almost anyone. If anything happens to Courfeyrac, Marius’s head might implode trying to choose a bedside.”

Valjean satisfies himself with a smile. He releases a breath. “Cosette—”

“You missed Christmas, you know.” She sounds more stern now, clearing her throat before she continues. “We still couldn’t find you. We celebrated at our house, of course—it’s the biggest, after all. I had to prepare the turkey all by myself. Next year you’ll have to make it up to me—Christmas turkey and the Easter ham.”

He pulls his other hand over where hers still clasps the first. “I’m sorry I left you alone. I didn’t want to.”

She looses a huff, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “I can’t even be cross with you. I told myself I’d try, but when that detective showed up I was so scared. I hadn’t found your letter yet, I didn’t know anything, and I just—I just—” She starts sobbing with real fervor now, and Valjean helplessly tugs her hand in toward him.

She thankfully takes the hint, sitting beside him in the bed and sobbing into his shoulder. He tries to pull his arm up to rub her back, but the needles hurt, and everything hurts, and he is so weak. He kisses her forehead instead, burying his face in her hair after.

“Cosette,” he tries again when her sobbing subsides. It isn’t the time, but there never will be a right time. “Cosette, I’m—”

“Don’t you dare say you’re dying,” Cosette snaps. The way she says it, he could almost believe that she has the answer to halting the inevitable, could stop death with a single word. “It’s too soon,” she insists, more weakly this time. “And we...we were supposed to have so much longer,” she whispers, crumbling once more.

“If I could delay this for anyone, I’d do it for you,” he promises. “But I’ve been living on borrowed time for far too long. I was given a second chance, and I took it, and I will never regret it. And you—you’ve been the best of my life.”

“Papa, no,” Cosette sobs in earnest. “You can’t leave me.”

His eyes are watering, and he exerts the last of his strength to wrap an arm around Cosette and pull her in close.

“Are you ready?” a voice breathes into his other ear. Nurses are pushing the door open and rushing into the room. Valjean can make out Cosette’s friend snapping from groggy confusion to defensive alertness in an instant— _what happened in his life to teach him that_ , he wonders briefly, the thought only half-formed and out of his grasp as quickly as it occurs. He sees the boy— _Marius, that’s it_ —fighting with nurses to move toward the bed, and Valjean needs to tell him that he doesn’t have to fight anymore, that it’s okay, but Marius has broken free of the nurses that were holding him back and is— 

Oh, Cosette. She’s wailing as she is removed from the bed, clinging to a shirt that Valjean certainly wasn’t wearing when he arrived. But Marius is wrapped around her now, and even distressed as they both are they turn in to one another, sharing in their grief as someone in scrubs gently, urgently presses them out of the room. 

_She’ll be okay._ A blur of the past four years of faces and laughter and cabinets full of freshly-washed dishes flashes before his eyes. _They’ll be okay._

Amidst the bustle surrounding him, Valjean is vaguely aware of erratic beeping. 

“I’m ready.”

And suddenly there is no more pain.

**Author's Note:**

> The corresponding episode is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17561900/chapters/42352505).
> 
> In most countries there actually isn't any statute of limitations on breaking parole and evading arrest, but we're just gonna gloss over that...
> 
> Please tell me what you think below (or in the final episode), or yell at me at my [tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com) for making you cry.


End file.
